Active labor market policies effects on unemployed women trajectories

In many European countries that have adopted the principles of active labor market policies in exchange for the preservation of social protection systems, leaving unemployment to go back to work goes through participating to various forms of public funded vocational training which are supposed to diminish sensible deficits in human capital at the origin of the employment deprivation. While this employment policy is questionable on principle – as it notably links unemployment to individual instead of structural factors, and relies on a mere conception of the employment relationship –, it nevertheless present contrasted results. Positive impact contrasts with the nearly 50% of the unemployed who are stuck in unemployement despite training participation. Usualy, evaluation of training policies for the unemployed is limited to categorising and assessing the respective impact of the kinds of training followed on return to employment. Few evaluations start with understanding the sociological variety of the unemployed, and the variety of meanings they place in training and return to work activity. Participating to training – whether it be on a volontary basis or as an “active” response to escape from sanctions – cannot be reduced to acquiring new knowledge to reach a level required by the labor market. Training participation is invested with conceptions and reshapings of social worlds, with involvement in desired futures. And more pragmaticaly, return to employment is also a question of redefinition of priorities, of temporalities, and social organisation of the collective life of a larger group than the sole individual. Our contribution seeks to better understand how training, return to work and family life is invested and challenged by the unemployed. Our findings are based on a large empirical study made for the European social fund. Findings from two sets of data will be presented : a longitudinal follow-up of ex ante and ex-post trajectories of some 840 unemployed who replied to a questionnaire, analysed through optimal matching method ; and an analysis of 30 biographical interviews made with women respondants to the questionnaire. On every situation, women present less chance to return to work than men. By centering the analysis on their case, we will show the different ways through which they get into training, evaluate their involvement and estimate the benefit of acquiring knowledge to solve part of the problems they face on a day to day basis, in different aspects of their social lives. While the quantitative analysis of the questionnaires will show the gender inequalities effects in the transition from unemployment to employment, and help identify specific clusters of women trajectories, the qualitative analysis of the biographical interviews will highlight five different ways of considering the articulation of training, (non-)work and family/social lives. The paper will conclude with some discussion of active labor market policies applied to women